Amenities, Apologies, Herbology and Hermione
by FitzDizzyspells8
Summary: Being a prefect isn't just about enforcing rules. A Fifth Year romione story that is something between an AU and a missing moments fic.
1. Chapter 1

_"Ron! Don't hurt Hedwig!"_

"I'm not trying to _hurt_ her, I'm just trying to get her — away — from — you," Ron grunted as he tried to bat Hedwig away from Hermione's hands. The snowy white owl, which Ron thought had been pacified, had, without warning, resumed its assault on them with a vengeance since delivering Harry's letters.

"I think she wants us to write back," Hermione said, shooting Ron a guilty look as she stumbled around the Grimmauld Place bedroom to dodge away from Hedwig. Ron's gut twisted as well, thinking of Harry's news that Hedwig had brought: that he'd just been attacked by Dementors in his Muggle neighborhood and could be expelled. The letter had contained all of two sentences, and one of them was, _"I want to know what's going on."_

Harry's letters this summer had become increasingly persistent for information about what was going on in the wizarding world since Voldemort's return, and Ron and Hermione were forced to hedge and make excuses in return. Inexplicably, Dumbledore had made them swear not to share anything with Harry. But to say nothing, especially after alarming news of a Dementor attack, was making Ron feel like a particularly shit friend.

"Harry probably told Hedwig to — _ouch!"_ Hermione jerked her hand back sharply, and a pinprick of blood on her thumb showed that the owl had made contact.

_"HEDWIG! GEROFF!"_ Ron shouted. He heaved a pillow at the owl, and the result was chaos: A flurry of feathers, hoots and shrieks ensued, and Hermione picked up the pillow to use as a sort of shield against the incensed owl's attacks.

"Hedwig — look! Look! I'm writing," Ron said, changing tact as he rifled through the drawers of an antique writing desk in the bedroom. He found a quill and then, finally, a bottle of ink and awkwardly hunched over a sheet of parchment in a standing position while Hermione tried to keep Hedwig at bay.

"Dear Harry… Sorry… it's been a minute… since I've written… Thanks for being… so… patient…" he said through clenched teeth.

_"I think we can make do without the pleasantries, Ron!"_ Hermione said over the sounds of flapping wings and hooting.

"It's a _fake_ letter, Hermione!" he hissed, knocking Hedwig back with an elbow. He wasn't sure whether it was the elbow or if she'd understood what he'd said — probably both — but Hedwig dove at him, newly incensed, and began to violently nip at his hands.

"AUGH! RIGHT — NEW PLAN," Ron bellowed, stumbling away from Hedwig toward his trunk. He wrenched it open, haphazardly tossing its contents out until he found a towel inside, and then crossed the room again in three quick strides to save Hermione.

He threw a towel over Hedwig, wrapping her into a raging, screeching bundle that he could barely contain. "Window! Get the window!"

"Okay, okay!"

Hermione heaved it open, and Ron threw Hedwig out of the towel at the last second to free her before pulling the window closed again with a snap.

The two of them stood there for a moment, feathers floating around them as they caught their breath in the sudden silence. They watched Hedwig thankfully take flight, even if it was with uncharacteristic clumsiness.

"Oh, I feel terrible," Hermione moaned. Her hair was a mess; Hedwig had gotten tangled in it a couple of times.

"She's flying just fine, see?" Ron said, wincing as he pointed with a finger which he realized was bleeding profusely. "Couple of bent feathers, but we're in a lot worse shape than she is after all that."

"No, I mean about not being able to tell Harry what's going on."

"Oh." He sighed as he felt another pang of guilt. "Right."

"Dumbledore must have a good reason for us to keep everything from him, right?"

"Yeah, must have… Dumbledore looked dead serious when he made us promise to. Have you ever had a conversation with Dumbledore like that before?" he said, shooting her a nervous glance. "Maybe when you got your Time-Turner, or something?"

Hermione shook her head, looking pale. "He's never spoken more than a few words to me, and they've always been kind words. I know he's a great wizard, but seeing him so grim when he spoke to us… It was unnerving…"

"Tell me about it," he said, laughing weakly. "The more he talked, the more I thought he was going to ask us to perform an Unbreakable Vow. I think he made us promise something like three different times during that conversation —"

"Four," she said. "It was an awfully intense conversation, if all he's worried about is our post being intercepted."

"Yeah, and I don't envy anyone who tries to wrench a letter from that owl's bloody talons."

"Literally," she said, wincing as she examined the wounds on her hands. She sighed, shaking her head in distress. "I knew Harry would get into trouble, stuck all on his own without news, I just knew it."

"But, blimey, getting attacked by Dementors?" he said, swallowing. "Even for Harry, that's pretty extreme."

"And in _Surrey,"_ Hermione said, her voice higher than normal. "That means the Ministry's lost control of the Dementors, at least partly. That — that they might be working with You-Know-Who now… Things have gotten even worse than we thought. Oh, thank goodness Harry knew how to cast a Patronus Charm, otherwise I can't even bear to think what could've happened…"

"He's going to be okay," Ron said, taking on a reassuring tone to convince himself as much as Hermione. "The Order's already putting together a plan to fetch Harry tomorrow. And then he'll be here, with loads of Aurors, and we'll be able to tell him the little that we do know, instead of brushing him off."

Hermione nodded and sat down a dusty four-poster bed in the middle of the room, its ancient frame creaking. As Ron leaned against the window, the two of them sighed in unison, partaking in their most common pastime these days: fretting over Harry.

He glanced at Hermione before walking back across the room, returning the towel to his trunk and rummaging in it again until he found what he needed.

"Give us your hands," he said, walking back to Hermione.

"Sorry?"

"Give us your hands," he repeated, unraveling the roll of _Healer Pierce's Quick-Soothing Dressings_ he'd grabbed. "You're bleeding on the duvet. It's just going to be another thing we have to clean in this place if we don't get you bandaged up."

"Oh," she said in a small voice. "Sure."

He hesitated for a moment before he took her hands in his, wrapping the soft material around Hermione's index finger. He swallowed, forcing himself to breathe normally.

This had been happening more and more often lately. Moments that should be perfectly normal didn't feel… normal anymore.

He knew it was all his fault. One time — _one time!_ — she'd stretched after reading for hours on an overstuffed sofa in the Gryffindor common room in a way that she probably hadn't even realized was startlingly… attractive. Harry hadn't even looked up from his homework, but Ron had been completely dumbfounded as he watched her briefly move in a way that he had never seen or imagined her move.

The image had inadvertently been burned into his brain. She'd laced her fingers together, stretching her arms up above her head. Ron had never even associated the words "tits" with "Hermione" before, but as she arched her back and sighed, in that moment the silhouette of her chest had made him _stare._

It wasn't the first time he had stared at Hermione. Everyone knew she'd looked gorgeous at that stupid ball — could have been on _his arm_ at that stupid ball — but that had been the first time he'd stared at her like _that._

It was such a simple little moment, and five seconds later she was rubbing her eyes and had returned to the same Hermione she'd always been.

But, at the same time, she _wasn't_ the same Hermione anymore, because his thoughts had snowballed rapidly over the next several days. He found himself wondering, out of pure curiosity, what she might look like stretching like that in her periwinkle robes she'd worn to the Yule Ball. What she might look while arching her back in her pyjamas in the girls' dormitories. Or with her top off. Or naked. On top of him.

Sigh.

There was something _wrong with his brain_, and he needed to _stop._ This was _Hermione,_ for fuck's sake! Exasperating little know-it-all who was brilliant and a good friend. A good_ friend._

But his stupid brain had gone and made everything weird. He needed to sort it out, because since he'd started thinking this way, things had been off. _He'd_ been off. And things needed to go back to normal.

Hermione cleared her throat. "So, why do you have all these bandages in your trunk?"

Ron blinked, belatedly returning to the dim, dusty room they were in. "Oh." He snorted ruefully. "I've been bitten loads here while we've been cleaning. The top of this creepy little music box slammed on top of my fingers while I was picking it up the other day. At first I thought it was just the way I'd picked it up, but when it chomped down three more times I realized it was personal."

Hermione smiled. "I do feel a bit guilty cleaning here when I could be with my own parents. We have work to do at my house, too."

"Yeah. I didn't have a say in the matter, but you _chose_ to spend your summer this way," he said, a grin creeping into his voice. "Completely mental, if you ask me."

Hermione huffed. "Well, I thought we'd be doing work that was a bit more… _helpful._ I thought there'd be a war on by now, but… things aren't happening exactly like I expected them to. At least not so far."

"But Dementors deciding to take a spur-of-the-moment holiday in Harry's neighborhood… _Something_ is clearly happening."

"I know," Hermione said grimly. "I know it is."

* * *

_A/N: So, this is another something I've been working on. Turns out I get very distracted when I try to write ahead without publishing, hehe. I still plan to work on my other WIPs. But this roughly ten-chapter fic will be something I'll update regularly as well. _


	2. Chapter 2

"Shall we go and find a compartment, then?" Harry said.

It was basically a rhetorical question. Ron shifted his weight nervously.

Hermione bit her lip, shifting Crookshanks' cage in her arms as the Hogwarts Express began to rumble forward. She shot a look at Ron, who winced guiltily back at her. Well, shit. Not another thing to make Harry feel alone and out-of-place.

"Er," Ron said.

"We're — well — Ron and I are meant to go into the prefect carriage."

The two of them stammered out a few awkward reassurances to Harry, who was doing that weird forced casual thing again to look like he was okay with being left out, when he clearly wasn't okay with it.

It felt like Third Year Hogsmeade trips all over again, and Ron wanted to tell Harry exactly the same thing he wanted to tell him back then — that, if it was up to them, he and Hermione would do anything to have him by their side.

But Hermione was already losing her mind with worry over nothing, and he felt a little jolt in his stomach as she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the prefect carriage. Ron rolled his eyes at Harry as Hermione began to fret over whether they'd be expected to pitch ideas at the meeting, and Harry grinned back at him before shoving his hands in his pockets, still looking a little lost. Ginny thankfully appeared to take up the Potter-minding and led him down the train's corridor, and Ron let out a sigh of relief.

"_Where is it?" _Hermione hissed. She had come to a complete stop, putting her trunk aside and awkwardly shifting Crookshanks on her hip as she tried to search through her jeans.

"If you've forgotten your badge, I'm sure it's fine," Ron said, touching the cool metal in his own pocket. He wasn't about to go pinning his to his jumper like some pathetic Percy clone. But the whole prefect thing was still so shocking that he felt he needed to keep it with him, just to make sure it was real. There were only two Fifth Year Gryffindor prefects in the whole school, and he was one of them.

He and Hermione.

"No, not my _badge," _Hermione said, and Ron had the wind knocked out of him as she frantically shoved Crookshanks' cage into his arms. "I had all these ideas written down that I was going to suggest at the first meeting, about ice breakers for the First Years, and bathroom maintenance in the Gryffindor girls' dormitories that really needs to be sorted, and House Elf negotiation proposals —"

"Merlin's _pants_, Hermione, take a breath," Ron said, holding the cage at arms length as Crookshanks began hissing and spitting at him. "You've probably got it all memorized anyway —"

"It must be here in my trunk," she muttered, crouching down in the corridor to throw open the trunk she'd been dragging.

Ron opened his mouth in disbelief to tell Hermione to get a grip and to stop pulling books and clothes out of her trunk like a mental patient, but then shrugged and gave a resigned sigh. He was used to this by now.

"Sorry about this," he said to a couple of bewildered Hufflepuff girls as they halted in the corridor at the impasse that was Hermione Granger. "Yeah, you're just going to have to step over her. Er, sorry. Do you need a hand? Yeah, there you go. Sorry."

He had to wave Terry Boot and later Colin Creevey through as well before Hermione emerged, triumphant and oblivious, with a sheet of parchment clutched in her hand.

"There probably won't even be space to put our trunks now,' Ron grumbled as he helped Hermione toss stuff haphazardly back. "All the space in the overhead compartment will probably be taken by now —"

"Oh god, are we late?" she gasped, checking her watch. "We're late!"

"Are we? Can't imagine why."

Ron inexplicably found himself hoping that Hermione would grab his arm again, but instead she simply wrenched Crookshanks back and rushed toward the engine end of the train, lugging her trunk with her. Ron frowned — at himself as much as at her — as he followed her down.

Hermione nervously smoothed her hair a couple of times in front of the compartment door before she took a deep breath and pulled it open.

Ron caught sight of the group of Hogwarts prefects staring back at them — and openly groaned.

"Gryffindor really had to scrape for prefects this year, didn't they?" drawled Draco Malfoy, who was taking up far too much room on the bench he was lounging on. "What was Dumbledore thinking when he chose _Ron Weasley?_"

"If anyone in this room is evidence that Dumbledore makes terrible prefect selections, Malfoy," Ron snarled, his ears burning, "it's not me."

Hermione was staring back at Malfoy in disbelief, the crumpled parchment still clutched in her hand.

Gretchen Weeks, the Head Girl standing near the window, cleared her throat.

"You'd both do well to remember that those who _have _been singled out to be prefects need to start _behaving _like them," Gretchen said sternly, glaring at both Ron and Malfoy. "Now. We've got a lot of ground to cover, and not a lot of time to do it. So if you don't mind, I'd like to get started since we're all finally here."

Malfoy smirked across the compartment at Ron and Hermione while Gretchen talked, Ron glaring back at him as she prattled on. With her lipstick and curled bob, not to mention the clipboard and quill in her hands, Gretchen Weeks reminded Ron of Percy's old girlfriend — someone far too eager to play adult than any teenager ought to be — and Ron stifled a sigh as the reality set in.

Being a prefect meant spending a lot of time with people like this. It meant working alongside the entire spectrum of knobs.

Gretchen explained the rounds that prefects would have to take patrolling the castle and reminded them of curfews, banned items, school rules and all the other stuff that he, Harry and Hermione routinely ignored.

His anger toward Malfoy gradually subsided to be replaced by boredom as she prattled on. Escort First-Years to their dormitories after the feast. Report any rule-breaking or concerning behavior to a Head Boy, Head Girl or a professor. Keep an eye on the castle occasionally, we need to take care of it too.

Ron had zoned out entirely by the time she began handing out rolls of parchment to each prefect that detailed the patrolling rounds, and he was grateful to realize that this appeared to be the end of the meeting. He turned to Hermione.

"Well," he said through a yawn, "shall we go find Harry now?"

"Actually," Hermione said, raising her voice as people gathered their things, "I had a couple of ideas I was hoping to propose."

Gretchen looked confused. "Ideas?"

"Yes! I thought it might be a good idea to start implementing some little welcome events for the First Years. Give them a chance to get to know one another. Maybe serve pumpkin juice and biscuits in the dormitories. Play 'two truths and a lie' — or maybe even have a scavenger hunt throughout Hogwarts! It would help them learn how to navigate the castle while they're still —"

"We don't really… do that here," Gretchen said, looking skeptical.

"Well, obviously. That's why I'm proposing it!"

"There are plenty of chances for the First Years to get to know each other," said Padma Patil. "I mean, they're around each other all the time, aren't they? Everyone sits together at the feast, they share a dormitory, and they all go to class together."

"If someone couldn't make friends under those circumstances," said Pansy Parkinson, who was sitting on the small amount of bench that Draco had left open, "I think they'd have to be _completely_ socially inept." She smirked at Hermione, and Malfoy began to snigger.

Hermione turned beet red, and Ron's head snapped up.

"It'd be quite a lot of work," said Ernie Macmillan, wearing the same look as Gretchen. "And we've got O.W.L.s to worry about this year..."

"Well, any sort of welcome events ought to be in the first week, shouldn't they? We could easily be done before classes really get underway..." Hermione was still blushing furiously, her words tumbling out in a rush as she spoke to the carpet.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm, Granger," Gretchen said, "but let's direct it toward the sort of things that Hogwarts prefects are meant to do, shall we?"

"I'm sure you forget sometimes, Hermione," Pansy said, sharing another smug look with Draco, "this isn't a Muggle primary school."

"Oi! We don't _need_ your permission to do it," Ron said angrily, causing everyone to look up in surprise. "Gryffindor will bloody well do it ourselves! Let the Ravenclaw First Years get to know each other by reciting the twelve uses of dragon blood, and the Slytherins can bang on about whose House Elf cowers the best. We'll be the first Hogwarts prefects to actually do something half-useful for once. C'mon, Hermione."

He grabbed her hand and stormed out of the compartment. Crookshanks let out a ear-piercing yowl as Hermione accidentally banged his carrier against the door while Ron dragged her out with their trunks.

"Twats," he seethed, taking long strides down the corridor while Hermione struggled to keep up with him. "I can't believe we'll have to work with that band of gits all year. Gretchen Weeks, Ernie Macmillan, and bloody _Malfoy _and _Parkinson? _I think Dumbledore really _is _beginning to lose his marbles this year! Remember what Harry said about how he wouldn't look him in the eye during his trial? I think the man's finally, truly lost it this —"

He lost his train of thought as he glanced back furiously at Hermione. She was still quite red, but was looking at him in a very strange way.

"Thank you," she said in a small voice. She still looked embarrassed, but in a different way now. She was smiling at him in a way that made his stomach flip.

"Any time," Ron said, and he realized he was suddenly, inadvertently smiling along with her. Her hand was still clutched in his. It's true that things were different, were still weird between them still, but… maybe it was a good weird. Maybe it was the kind of weird that could become…

"You know, I think you're right. I think we _can _plan a Hogwarts scavenger hunt for the First Years by ourselves!"

The happy, fuzzy feeling in Ron's chest began to fade as the realization sunk in of what, exactly, he'd done. He didn't even really recall what he'd said. All he knew is that it'd been extremely satisfying to tell everyone off.

"Er… yeah…" he said slowly.

"I have a few clues in mind already," she said enthusiastically. "My plan is to teach the First Years where all of their classrooms are by the end of the week, to teach them where the trick stair is, and where that portrait of the Brandywine Banshee is — that scream used to give me such a fright when I first came to Hogwarts ..."

Ron frowned, nodding slowly as she explained all the organizing and notifying and legwork they'd have to do. It was the sort of thing that'd be awful on _any _year, but it especially clashed with his plans this year to secretly train for Gryffindor Keeper tryouts. It was going to be hard enough to practice flying without anyone seeing him, and now he'd gone and accidentally volunteered himself for this mad project of Hermione's.

Getting a new broomstick was the best part of being made prefect, but now it seemed as if all the responsibility was going to go and ruin that silver lining.

"Let's… let's just go and find Harry…" Ron said hastily. "We can think about all that stuff later. Merlin knows who he's had to share a compartment with."

The two of them began making their way down the corridor, glancing into compartments to try to find where Harry had ended up.

"Speaking of Merlin…" Hermione said, and Ron braced himself for some sort of lecture on medieval wizarding history, "what was it you said earlier? 'Merlin's _pants'?"_

Ron looked up at her with a startled grin. "Yeah... you've never heard anyone say that before?"

"No," she said, and Ron was amused to see her giggling. It was always fun to see Hermione lose it over the same kind of stupid, immature stuff that would crack up him and Harry. "I've only ever heard people say 'Merlin's beard' before. Did you come up with that yourself?"

"Nah, I can't take credit for something that brilliant," he said. "It's always funny to me when you ask me about these normal, everyday sayings."

"Well, I'm always interested to learn more about wizarding culture. Are there any more … you know … sort of vulgar wizarding sayings like that?"

"_Do I know any more vulgar wizarding sayings?" _Ron repeated incredulously. "Hermione, how much time do you have?"


End file.
